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With active global conflicts, American democracy on the ropes, affordability issues abounding, and that irritating thing where professional tennis players always take 4-5 balls from ballkids before selecting the two they want to serve with and then making the ball kids bend down and pick up the discarded balls, it’s probably going to be difficult to create a meaningful groundswell of concern about this issue: People aren’t talking enough. “An analysis published in July in Perspectives on Psychological Science of more than 2,000 people found that Americans and people in several other countries are speaking roughly 300 fewer words a day, or about two to three minutes’ worth, with each passing year. The drop - a 28 percent decline from 2005 to 2019 - was especially pronounced among people younger than 25.” In this age of idiocy, when the deluge of words we encounter tends to result in symptoms similar to those one might experience after eating a few bags of Taylor Farms shredded lettuce, it’s safe to say that hearing fewer words might not be our most pressing menace. But researchers are concerned that speaking fewer words could have a negative impact. “Producing even an ordinary sentence requires the brain to retrieve words, organize them, coordinate muscles, interpret another person’s response and formulate what comes next - all in a fraction of a second. Regions in our brains, including Broca’s area in the left hemisphere, play important roles in speech production and articulation. That raises a provocative possibility. If conversation repeatedly recruits these systems, could talking itself function as a modest form of cognitive exercise? And if so, what happens when people do less of it?” WaPo (Gift Article): The ‘Gen Z stare’ — and the decline of saying things out loud. (I asked both of my Gen Z kids what they thought of this theory, and neither one answered. I’ll keep asking the question. I need the exercise.)
2
Eat and Runs
“A generation ago, an outbreak of food poisoning generally remained small-scale. The source was likely to be tainted ground beef from a local butcher shop or an egg salad gone bad at a church picnic. As the scale of industrial food production has grown, so has the scale of foodborne outbreaks. When I wrote my book Fast Food Nation, published in 2001, high levels of fecal contamination of ground beef were already a nationwide problem, not just a local one, because huge ground-beef-processing plants with poor safety procedures were supplying the fast-food industry.” Here’s the issue. The scale of food production and distribution is going up. The number of people we have making sure that food is safe is going down. “The food-safety system we have—underfunded for decades—is being methodically dismantled by the Trump administration.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): Should We Be Afraid of Our Food?
3
Uncle Sam Wants U
“The proposed regulations, which the Treasury Department published on Thursday, would add another element to the guidelines that schools and other organizations must follow to qualify for tax-exempt status with the Internal Revenue Service. The rules would deny tax-exempt status to any school, including secondary schools and universities, if it has any policy or program, including admissions and scholarships, that the I.R.S. finds to be racially discriminatory.” The obsession continues. NYT (Gift Article): Trump Moves to Strip Tax Exemption From Schools That Aid Minority Students.
+ “Fifteen schools now charge six figures per year for the total cost of attendance; others are on the verge.” WaP (Gift Article): As more colleges surpass $100,000 price tag, here’s the true cost. (That’s a lot of money to spend on honing one’s ChatGPT prompts...)
+ Like everywhere else, there’s a big divide when it comes to the demand for higher education. Top schools are more selective and expensive than ever. Other schools? They’re accepting students before they even apply.
4
Footing the Bill for a Bill of Goods
“Virtually every American has been targeted by scammers in some way, exclusive new polling data shows. Scams in the U.S. have surged to a record high, causing billions in losses for Americans. But the U.S. still lags behind some other countries in tackling the problem, holding financial and social media companies responsible and regulating the cryptocurrency scammers rely on, an investigation by The Associated Press and FRONTLINE found.” Most victims get no help and some end up losing even more.
5
Extra, Extra
No Strain to No Gain? Every expert says the US military is stretched too thin because of the Iran war. The administration’s plan? More stretching. “It is part of an open-ended military strategy designed to give President Trump options in the war, the people said. But the deployment of 19 warships, air-defense units, fighter squadrons and paratroopers across the region is straining servicemembers and their families and creating a maintenance backlog that could take years to unwind.” WSJ (Gift Article): Hegseth Extends Mideast Deployments Into 2027, Escalating Strain on Troops.
+ Gloria: “Calling herself ‘an entrepreneur of social change,’ Ms. Steinem helped usher in sweeping cultural transformations across virtually every facet of American life, from the boardroom to the courtroom to the bedroom. For more than half a century, she personified the women’s movement and became its most enduring symbol; her tinted aviator glasses and curtain of streaked-blond hair parted in the center made her one of the most recognizable women in the world.” Gloria Steinem, Personification of the Women’s Movement, Dies at 92. My wife Gina Pell on the epiphany of meeting Gloria Steinem.
+ Sir, Come Vent: “Adam Silver didn’t just drop the hammer on the Los Angeles Clippers. He busted out the sledgehammer and called in the wrecking ball for good measure ... Among the league’s punishments to the Clippers after an investigation found that they broke league rules in order to pay Kawhi Leonard under the table: a $30 million fine; the loss of five first-round picks beginning in 2029; one-year suspensions for owner Steve Ballmer and top business executive Gillian Zucker; and a six-month suspension for top basketball executive Lawrence Frank.” 5 takeaways from the NBA’s punishment of the Clippers for circumventing the salary cap. (This could be Steve Ballmer’s worst moment since he predicted, “There’s no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share. No chance.”) The punishment might make sense for ownership, but it also punishes the hell out of Clippers’ fans, who did nothing wrong (other than being Clippers fans). This is a big win for independent journalism, as the scandal was unearthed by Pablo Torre (who won a Pulitzer for his reporting). Here’s Pablo talking to Dan Patrick about the fallout.
+ Russian to Be Ready: “In a civil defense shelter hewn into rock, behind doors designed to withstand a nuclear or biological attack, two Finnish conscripts wearing hazmat suits and breathing masks are measuring radiation levels as they take part in an exercise to turn a cave into a place of safety for thousands of people.” Finland runs Europe’s biggest civil defense exercise since the Cold War.
+ Face Time: “The acquisition is also another sign of Nvidia’s growing role as Silicon Valley’s central banker, using its vast financial resources to bolster A.I. start-ups and funnel money to customers for its chips.” Nvidia Extends A.I. Spending Spree With $12.9 Billion Deal for Hugging Face.
+ Grounded: “The Trump administration imposed tariffs of up to 100 percent on drones on Thursday, continuing its long-running campaign to thwart the Chinese drone industry and promote domestic manufacturing.” The big question is whether there’s enough domestic product to fill the void. What’s less of a question is whose investment this benefits. “Mr. Trump’s eldest sons, Eric and Donald Trump Jr., are shareholders and advisory board members of Dominari Holdings, which has invested in Powerus, a Florida-based drone maker. Donald Trump Jr. also sits on the advisory board of Unusual Machines, the top manufacturer of drone components in the United States.”
+ Tennis Menace: “Sometimes they&#